


The Apple Incident

by Cypress_Leaves



Series: Midnight Secrets AU [1]
Category: Dreamtale - Fandom, Midnight Secrets (UndertaleMV), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (it's why his name is hardly said), Alternate Universe - Dreamtale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Midnight Secrets, Dissociation, Dream is only mentioned, Dreamtale Nightmare Sans (Undertale), Dreamtale Sans | Dream (Undertale), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Midnight Secrets Background, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, The Apple Incident how it was in Midnight Secrets, but Nightmare was partially dissociating throughout all this, just lightly mentioned at the end, there isnt anything specific, this is very mild and probably isnt that clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:21:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27251869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cypress_Leaves/pseuds/Cypress_Leaves
Summary: . . . He stares down in horror at the apple clutched in his hands, the apple that had once been a bright, shimmering gold, the apple that was now as rotten and black as burnt wood from a forest fire, a cyan-tinted iridescent sheen coating it. He stares, and he lifts his stare to the tree. His tree, his and his brother’s tree, their mother, the tree their whole lives was dedicated to protecting, the Tree of Feelings. He stares, with growing horror, a nasty thing that grips him tight and freezes him to his very spirit core, as the healthy bark of the tree begins to rot, to flake, traveling quickly up from the roots to the trunk, he watches as the leaves deteriorate, shrivel, becoming brown with death. . . .
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Midnight Secrets AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905634
Kudos: 17





	The Apple Incident

Fear is rather a silly thing.

Nightmare understands fear. Perhaps a bit too intimately, but he understands it nonetheless. How could he not? How could he not feel the adrenaline rush that intense fear, that great panic, causes within him as he tries, futilely, to flee? How could he not so clearly understand fear, when he’s forced to hide behind a worn-down couch or under a rotting desk or in a dark alleyway?  _ How could he not, when he’s found by the villagers, his assaulters, how could he not when he is being dragged out into the open, how could he not when fists and feet descend upon him? How could he not when they spit vulgarities and insults into his face? How could he not, as he lays trembling in a growing pool of his own marrow, hoping they do not return? _

Oh, yes, Nightmare understands fear. He understands how it affects people, how it manifests, and what it can cause people to do.

He understands it has varying intensities.

_ He’s never felt so terrified in his life. _

He stares down in horror at the apple clutched in his hands, the apple that had once been a bright, shimmering gold, the apple that was now as rotten and black as burnt wood from a forest fire, a cyan-tinted iridescent sheen coating it. He stares, and he lifts his stare to the tree. His tree, his and his brother’s tree, their mother, the tree their whole lives was dedicated to protecting, the Tree of Feelings. He stares, with growing horror, a nasty thing that grips him tight and freezes him to his very spirit core, as the healthy bark of the tree begins to rot, to flake, traveling quickly up from the roots to the trunk, he watches as the leaves deteriorate, shrivel, becoming brown with death.

He watches as the golden apples, the positivity apples, his brother Dream’s apples, rot into a black darker than the Void itself, shining a pretty cyan, a terrible cyan, in the light of the setting sun. He watches the positivity apples corrupt into negativity, he watches, all with a great sense of trepidation, the positivity drain away, and hears the discordance rising to the hill from the village. The yelling, the screaming, the crying, a swirling, tangible maelstrom, of fear, of pain, of anger, of sadness, of disgust, of so many negative emotions he can’t even begin to name them all.

_ “THAT DEMON HAS CORRUPTED THE TREE!”  _ He hears someone shout, hears how that declaration causes the chaos to multiply. He hears the clanking of metals, hears the footsteps rapidly approaching him, and he manages to tear his gaze away from his mother, his mother who is dying twice over again, his mother who is rotting and falling apart. He watches as a great crowd of humans and monsters corner him, brandishing pitchforks, swords, knives, even their own fists and fangs. He watches, as the terror courses through his very being, and he knows that they will kill him for what he has done.

Fear, though, is a funny thing. He understands what it can cause people to do.

The villagers, scared for their tree, their tree that was never really theirs, the tree that grants them their precious positive emotions, are willing to kill the creature who has started its downfall.

He, terrified for his life, is willing to do what it takes to stay alive.

He knows he must do something, he must fight back, he must not die.

He does not know how he is supposed to fight against such an unruly mob, joined together only by their goal to rid the world of him, so he does the next best thing and flees up his safe space, what was once his safe space, scaling up the trunk of his tree, leaving behind the first apple he’d corrupted, the one that had started this wave.

His violet eye-lights, shrunk down to mere pin-pricks in his fear, in his haste to put distance between himself and his would-be murderers, land upon the dark fruit sitting innocently, sitting temptingly, on the lowest branch. And he stills, for a moment, as he considers the apples, as the villagers rush forward, as Dream tries to break through to the front of the crowd and hold them back.

He knows he will not survive if he does not have a way to fight against the villagers. He does not know what the apples will do.

He reaches forward, tugging an apple off of its branch, and takes a bite.

All else drowns away as a tidal wave of negativity washes over him, and he almost loses his grip on the branch as he cries out, wetly, he notes distantly, like something is trying to clog his throat. He swallows against it, against his scream, and can feel there is something there. He does not know what it is. He takes another bite. Again, another wave, but with it, he can feel something odd, something strange, a hint of strength and of power.

He takes another bite, and another, and another, until the apple is gone and sludge is starting to creep out of his eye sockets, out from between his joints, and up his false throat, coating the inside of it and spilling from his jaws as he coughs wetly, raggedly. He knows he mustn’t stop, he must continue, he can feel even more strength coming with the strange slime from the apples.

He grabs another apple, and he keeps eating.

* * *

He must have blacked out at some point, because when he’s aware of himself again, he’s almost entirely covered in the sludge. Another apple, and now his body  _ is  _ covered entirely.

There are still a few apples left.

He mustn’t stop. He needs more. He needs more power; he needs more strength.

He picks up another apple from the ground -  _ when had he left the tree?  _ \- and devours it in seconds. More sludge rises from the center of his being, but he is already covered, it doesn’t have many places to go. It sits inside him, waiting. He eats another apple, and it starts to overflow. It spills over his right socket, dripping down his face and restoring itself at its starting point, falling more and more from his socket while simultaneously remaining there. Another two apples, and the sludge has filled up his entire socket, and he is rendered half-blind.

No matter, he is powerful enough that half vision does not bother him.

There are few apples left. He keeps eating quickly, feels the sludge squirming inside his body at his back, and with each new apple it starts to tear through, and it  _ hurts  _ but it feels so  _ good  _ and  _ powerful. _ He laughs, feeling like sobbing, as four sharpened tentacles slice through his back and lash through the air behind him.

As he cackles, he begins to notice his surroundings. The world has blackened, rotting at its core, and the sky is blood-red. It matches the color of the liquid dripping from his clawed fingers, matches the splashes on the bodies around him.

Nightmare laughs harder as he realizes these villagers are dead, and he killed them.

His delighted laughing shifts into utterly gleeful sobbing as he moves onto the next group, utilizing the new weaponized limbs he has gained, and he descends onto the village.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Facts:  
> \- The first apple that Nightmare corrupted was grabbed by Dream sometime before Nightmare's "black-out". It was changed back to a positivity apple, which Dream ate.  
> \- During Nightmare's "black-out", his powers were surging immensely, and he turned Dream to stone without realizing. He doesn't notice until after destroying the village.


End file.
